Still weighing pros and cons and with US the cons keep piling up The other thing I realized is that the elite mileage bonus is less than United for levels under Chairman and that I get full elite UA bonus miles even on US flights.

Im really going to ABE (Allentown) so its looking like my best bet is outbound redeye SEA-IAD-ABE and return ABE-ORD-SEA on UA. The cons are the Saab and CRJ-200 in and out of ABE and getting into ABE at 9:45a despite redeying.

So I think I have bagged even asking US for a match.

About the only advantages of US over UA...

1) Upgrades are free for all elites and one companion. (Nothing beats getting four cheap tickets upgraded to First for free when I fly with my family--my wife has status too.)
2) The challenge for US is fairly attractive compared to many other challenges. (Of course a free match would beat a challenge.) You get the benefits of status (like upgrades) from the time you start the challenge, and can even hit their highest level (CP) if you fly 30k miles during the challenge.
3) Upgrade percentages are very good with US, even at lower elite levels, especially if you can avoid the typical business travel times. I hit 70-80% as Silver and have been 100% as Platinum.

Other than that, UA probably has the advantage on almost anything you look at. Weigh those three things and that should let you know if you should dig deeper.

Quick question on the US v UA situation:
Would it be better for me to switch horses to US now? UA have just told me that there are no challenges available which means the full 50k to get to Prem Exec, whereas those same miles would get me to Plat on US?

Has anyone asked for a status match from CO to NW? I wonder what NW will give CO Plat. Gold or Plat.

Wondering if anyone has recently done a match TO nwa? Wondering if it is safe to request a match so that the status will last through 2010. I think previous posts mentioned June 1st was the cutoff, but I recall at least 1 post who mentioned that they requested after that and only got status through that current year. Thanks for any replies.

You and me both - I asked basically this in this post and hope somebody has an idea while there is still time

I hear ya. The last thing I want to happen is to put in a request and have them approve it, but only until next March. I would like to get it asap though, as right now we are in MSP, with a move planned later this summer to DFW. I want to be able to take advantage of any NWA flights that beat out AA while still in MSP. And on the slim chance that NWA has a nicer fare on something out of DFW, at least I would have the option of either (with status) for 2.5 years. Providing that NWA only soft landed me to Silver after GLD.

thats funny. I came to this thread to pose the same exact question. I am a 1K moving to DTW and want PLAT on NWA, but know that i won't be able to fly 75k miles between now and the end of the year, so do you think, even if they do match me to PLAT in 2009, will it carry to 2010. If not then I'll stay with 1K until the end of this year and pray Delta gives me PLAT next year...

Any insight would be extremely helpful!

My understanding is that if you were to request status match after June 16th of any year, that status match will be valid until February of the year after next. For instance, if NW matches your 1K status today, you would be PE/PM until 2/11.

50K miles would get you to Gold on US.

Just fyi, I just got off the phone with a DL reservations agent who found and cited the SkyMiles status matching from their system -- he called it a "promotion" though, he said to allow two to three weeks for the match, and he said that the offer expired June 30 for a match lasting until Feb 2010. He did, however, say that there were no restrictions whatsoever that he could see on which airlines they would status match, even encouraging me to status match with my Flying Blue account (I asked him to recheck this multiple times, he kept coming back with the answer that it's possible.)

Well I decided to just go for it, with NWA disappearing this year anyway there's not much to lose. Although "titanrulez32" indicated NWA will grant the additional year after June 16th, while "Rus925" indicated that in DL (NWA to be) it's after June 30th. Sure hope it's the former....

Earlier match rqsts have only resulted in Gold, not Plat from NW even if u r 1K according to earlier posts in this thread

I requested a status match from NW a few months ago. I am a CO plat but I fly probably 85% of my flights on NW and I FAXed them copies of that activity. I received a gold WorldPerks status match from Northwest, and I have since qualified for platinum. My wife is a CO silver and NW comp'ed her silver on WorldPerks.

What is your opinion on trying to get a status match from either FB Platinum or BD *G to LANpass? I heard they sometimes do match AA status. Haven't found anything on other airlines.